On 3 December, EU Transport Ministers will approve a simple progress report on the European Commission's proposal to stop the time change.
This is provided for in a document of the Council of the European Union dated 19 November.
On the procedural aspect, the adoption of a progress report, when the Member States' ambassadors to the EU ('Coreper') have expressed their views in this respect, falls short of the European Commission's ambitions, which, when it presented its proposal on 12 September last (see EUROPE 12094), expected the last changeover to summer time to take place in March 2019, before a possible last changeover to winter time in October 2019.
Due to the lack of political agreement ('general approach') at the Council meeting on 3 December and while the draft report on the subject is still not published in the European Parliament, this objective cannot be achieved.
On the substance, to justify such a timetable, a declaration annexed to the progress report, which will have to be approved by the ministers, mentions the need for coordination action at European level in order to find "common ground" on possible future slots to be set up in the Union.
Moreover, this progress report still mentions a possible end to the time change in 2021, as recommended in the first draft compromise put on the table by the Austrian Presidency of the Council and detailed in our columns (see EUROPE 12124). The letter of these documents is generally in line with the ministerial declarations and reactions issued at the end of the informal meeting of Transport Ministers in Graz on 29 October last (see EUROPE 12127).
Responding to a question from EUROPE, Margaritis Schinas, spokesperson for the European Commission, said she respected the approach taken by the co-legislators in terms of timing. Not ending the time change in 2019 "is not the end of the world", he added. As a reminder, Violeta Bulc, the European Commissioner for Transport, acknowledged at the Graz meeting that Member States would need "more time tocome to a final decision" on this issue of the end of the time change. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)